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Crying It Out

By Elissa Weissman July 26, 2012 10:00 amJuly 26, 2012 10:00 am

When my daughter was seven months old, she started crying every night at about 11:30. The first night she did it, it was so uncharacteristic of our excellent little sleeper that my husband and I both went running in. Blaming teething pain, we dosed her with infant Tylenol, squinting to fill the dropper in her night light and cooing for her to swallow. Grant rocked her until she was calm, and then she came to me. She nursed for five minutes, and she smiled at us from her crib when we put her down. We all slept until 8 a.m.

When Karina cried at the same time the next night, only I went in. Tylenol, rocking, nursing, sleep. The third night, I skipped the drugs and the chair. She nursed for 5 minutes, and I was back in bed in 10.

I let this go on for almost two weeks, this nighttime nursing routine she hadn’t needed the previous four months. It was annoying, but not awful. But when her cry became a two-toothed grin upon seeing me, I suspected I was being played. When she laughed and bicycled her legs but refused to go back in her crib without nursing, I knew I had created a problem. So when we heard that familiar wail at 11:22 on Monday night, my husband, Grant, and I made a decision: that night it was going to stop.

After five minutes of crying, Grant gave her a bottle with water in it. According to one parenting book, this would bore her, and she wouldn’t bother waking up the next night. Well, Karina wasn’t bored; she was furious.

Grant put her in her crib, and she cried. Oh, did she cry. I cried, too. Oh, did I cry.

I never thought I would let my child cry it out, but I certainly never thought I wouldn’t be able to let my child cry it out. My pre-motherhood self was against this as a matter of principal, not because I was a wimp. I’ve watched “Supernanny.” I was going to be loving mom, but a strong one. My pre-motherhood self had no sense of the amount of strength it takes to ignore your baby’s cry.

The Internet is brimming with parents who proudly assert that they let their child cry it out, it worked, and you should do it, too. But none of the parents I know have embraced sleep training with confidence. One says with an embarrassed shrug that she gave her daughter a 4 a.m. bottle until she was one. Another continues to bring her second child into her bed when he cries, saying he “pulls strings I didn’t know I had.” And one (short, thin) mom recently admitted that she’s been getting into the crib with her toddler and sneaking out after he falls asleep. Upon hearing this, another mom said she had tried getting into the crib, but didn’t fit.

It’s easy to judge another’s parenting, but it’s hard to be a parent, especially in the middle of the night, when your convictions fall prey to your heart. This, I’ve found, is what being a parent is: constant questioning, second-guessing your every decision. It felt awfully selfish letting my daughter cry until her voice broke, all so that I could sleep uninterrupted. But enabling her midnight nursing habit had made me feel like a lousy parent, too. I gripped the sheets and pressed my face into my pillow, feeling guilty about not going in there, and feeling guilty about feeling guilty about it.

Karina fell asleep at 12:26 a.m., 64 minutes after she started crying. I lay awake much longer, wondering if she knew we still loved her. Maybe we had destroyed the trust we had spent seven months building, or maybe this was the first of many times we would have to deny her something she wanted for the sake of her own good. Nothing is clear in the middle of the night after 64 minutes of heartache.

I wish I could say it’s clear now. It certainly seems like it should be.

The next morning, Karina was her silly, smiley self. Come bedtime, she slept 12 hours straight (I slept terribly). In the nine months since, she’s gone almost every night without a peep. If she does wake up, we’re able to calm her and put her back to bed, without milk or tears. But we always go in and calm her down.

I could almost be one of those parents online, asserting that crying it out works. It’s easy to know what’s best from a distance, for someone else and their kids. Instead, I get joy from her daily reminders that she loves me, no matter what happened that night, and (I hope) no matter what happens going forward. I try to find strength in having helped my daughter be independent, even at seven months old, and even though it made us both cry. I just pray that I won’t have to do it again.

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We're all living the family dynamic, as parents, as children, as siblings, uncles and aunts. At Motherlode, lead writer and editor KJ Dell’Antonia invites contributors and commenters to explore how our families affect our lives, and how the news affects our families—and all families. Join us to talk about education, child care, mealtime, sports, technology, the work-family balance and much more